Ross Ramsey Executive Editor

Ross Ramsey
is executive editor and co-founder of The Texas Tribune. Before joining the Tribune, Ross was editor and co-owner of Texas Weekly for 15 years. He did a 28-month stint in government as associate deputy comptroller for policy and director of communications with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Before that, he reported for the Houston Chronicle from its Austin bureau and for the Dallas Times Herald, first on the business desk in Dallas and later as its Austin bureau chief, and worked as a Dallas-based freelance business writer, writing for regional and national magazines and newspapers. Ross got his start in journalism in broadcasting, covering news for radio stations in Denton and Dallas.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn thinks it would be a great idea to open the FBI’s investigative files on Hillary Clinton. But there's a reason for separating police and prosecutors and courts — and for separating all of them from politics.

State lawmakers' 2013 abortion regulations — an effort to circumvent what was spelled out over time by the U.S. Supreme Court — would have been easier to defend with some evidence. But that wasn’t part of the sales pitch.

Texas lawmakers want to get a leash on property taxes, which requires them to restrain local governments. The local governments point to expensive state government mandates that drive up their costs. It's hard to fix blame, or credit.

Monday's Supreme Court ruling against two key provisions of the state's anti-abortion law was the latest setback for a band of Republicans who abhor regulatory constraints on business but who regularly try to control the behavior of individuals in Texas.

Maybe the overnight sit-in that captured Washington’s attention will keep gun control in the news. House Democrats' effort fell short, but as Wendy Davis showed three years ago in Texas, the end of the spectacle isn’t necessarily the end of the fight.

The primaries and runoffs are out of the way. The state conventions are over. The hot arguments that produced the state party platforms have cooled. And the power of the most partisan Republicans and Democrats is ebbing with the season.

Donald Trump starred this weekend as the minority party’s engine, a source of Texas Democratic Party delegates’ enthusiasm and of their hope that someday, perhaps even someday soon, voters will elect a Democrat to statewide office.

Lauretta Jackson, a physical therapist from Any Baby Can, works with Sara weekly to improve her body strength. Nonprofit therapy providers are worried budget cuts made by lawmakers will put them out of business.

Numbers can give you a full accounting of something without telling you what’s really going on, like when lawmakers talk about trimming budgets and saving money while diverting attention from whatever fell on the cutting room floor.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is under fire for his comments after the shootings in a gay nightclub in Orlando, and he can only blame himself. His problem isn’t his intent; his problem is that his other actions of late made his critics’ worst suspicions plausible.

The most reliable source of third-party candidates — the Libertarian Party of Texas — didn't field contestants in most of the state’s few remaining swing districts. It looks like that’s one problem GOP candidates in the most competitive races won’t have to deal with.